There's also the fact that Mxy doesn't really strike a personal chord with Superman. He might make an interesting side attraction, for a thirty-minute short or something, but when people go to see a live action film, they want something intense and personal. Especially for the first film. This movie has to present THE story of Superman. Who is he? What is his life? What drives him? Who are the people who contribute to his life, what is his role in their lives?

Mxy isn't really "the story of Superman" material. He's "one time this weird thing happened to Superman" material. That's great for a tie-in comic or a short feature, but for a Hollywood Blockbuster feature-length presentation, he just doesn't really matter enough in the scheme of Superman's life and history.

To borrow a phrase, au contraire, mon capitan. Everyone knows the story of Superman, everyone knows what he stands for- pop culture's ensured that. Mxy, though, could really put him through the wringer. Sure, it starts with simple tricks, and fun. But Mxy in a serious setting, could be all about Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the character- that is, is Superman really the boy scout we know? How far could he be pushed before he would break?

Everyone knows the roundabout story of Superman, but for establishing the birth of a new franchise, the team needs to establish their take on the story of Superman. One Superman is not equal to another. For example, the Superman I'm most familiar with is a whiny teenager who really needs to stop dicking around with bullshit love interests and just marry Chloe Sullivan already. That's not compatible with...well, any other version of Superman that's floating around.

Who is THIS Superman? You can't just say, "Everyone knows Superman so I don't have to establish his character, motives, or supporting cast, everyone will just know it." If that's true, if you can't bring anything new or different to the table...then really, there shouldn't be a movie at all.

Well if this version is to Superman what Nolan's Batman was to traditional Batman then I think we can rule out Myx. Nolan didn't want the Penguin in Batman because he thought he would be too silly and would clash with the tone of his movies. Imagine what he'd think of Myx.

But on a serious note- why do they have to retell the origin? Why can't they pick up in the middle? Why not just pick up at some point, treat the parts everyone knows as established, and tell a decent story that Dick Donner and Bryan Singer haven't told?

I may have mentioned this way earlier in this same thread, but I personally think it would be great if Superman had more of an episodic movie, dealing with lots of little adventures, tied together by a character arc that culminates at the film's climax. So while I agree that basing a movie around Mxy would be tough to do right, having him be one of several challenges Superman handles could work well.

EDIT: Regarding Superman's origin story, since Supes is Famed In-Story, footage from an in-universe documentary on Superman could quickly get audiences up to speed on him.

On the subject of the costume, I mean I can get why people would be upset but it's certainly not as drastic as the electric blue redesign or the black suit Jon Peters wanted. The iconography is all there. It's not like they went all X-Men with it.

I thought I'd hate the new costume, and I still think the texturing makes it look too much like scales in close-ups (at least the close-up poster image we've seen), but seeing in more recent images, I think it looks pretty good. The cape's a bit too long for my taste, though.

"The idea, or so I thought, was that Superman can cloak others in his aura to protect them."

Never heard that one before.

The cape looks so long that I imagine Henry Cavill had a difficult time not tripping over it, unless it was CGI at least part of the time. I'm sure it'll look fine for the film, just that for my own aesthetic sense I would have liked something that hung, say, to his knees rather than all the way to his feet.

And I still can't understand why they went with the "S" shield design that they did. I know the shield has looked different at different times throughout the years (at least until about 1943, after which it was pretty much codified and only varied slightly depending on the artist drawing Superman). The most common version is one of the most recognizable symbols on Earth; mucking with it just doesn't make sense to me. Still, for all that, it doesn't look as bad as I thought it would.

The S Shield design has been constantly tweaked over the years, originally it was the shape of a police badge, later it had a triangular shape and it wasn't until the late 40's that they had started to establish the hexagon shape. The shape of the S itself has seen the most variations, from a scribbled S to more elegant form that filled up the entire shield. Some liked to push the bottom "swoop" into the border or otherwise make the top swoop much thicker than the rest. Superman Returns made the S an even thickness throughout but made the shield slightly rounded to give it a more organic look and less geometric. This version of the symbol seems to be slightly taller than Returns but otherwise is going with a related idea. In some images it adds additional S shaped detailing within the S, but I don't see it on the costume itself.

Regarding the origin: they don't actually have to retell the origin story, but I can understand why they'd want to. Retelling the origin gives an opportunity to build the character from the ground up.

The important thing is establishing who their version of Superman is. Superman is a character who has been written a lot of different ways. You can't just say, "Use the Superman everyone knows" because there are so many different versions of Superman. On a superficial level, there are a lot of shared similarities between different versions of Superman, but on a deep, personal level, what events have occured in this Superman's life define who he is at his core.

An origin story isn't necessary for that; Incredible Hulk was able to establish their version of their character pretty well while only touching very briefly on their version of his origin. But it does help a lot. An easy way to let the audience in and show them your version of the character is by letting them see the defining moments that shaped that character's life for themselves.

Because those are the moments that build the character, and shape him into someone that's interesting to see onscreen. I mean, you could say the same for any other iconic film character. Look at Batman Begins. I could tell you that everyone knows Batman's origin, so the entire first chunk of the film can just be cut out; the audience doesn't need to see Batman being trained under Ra's al Ghul, or learn about the Scarecrow fear toxin's history with both the League of Shadows and Bruce Wayne's history, or see the confrontation where Bruce gets thrown out in the streets by Falcone, because everyone knows Batman's history, right? All of that is stuff that happens to every Batman, right? So we can just skip over it?

The movie would have been lesser and probably nonsensical if we'd cut those scenes out, regardless of how well-known Batman is.

There are ways of playing with the narration, though. Batman Begins used Anachronic Order with a lot of Flashbacks to establish where they were at and who Bruce Wayne was. This movie doesn't need to open on Krypton, and from the look of it I'd imagine they'll at least start in Smallville (or given Nolan's propensity for In Medias Res, with Superman already in cuffs) and then build up his origin from there. It is a well-established part of Superman lore that he didn't fully understand who he was until he interacted with the message from Jor-El, which is a perfect jumping point.

Pretty much everything after the orphaned bit was specifically invented as part of Begins' version of the character. That was the point: you can't just go, "Everyone knows the origin, so none of this is important," because it's all important to this version of the character and story.

No, because a) Solomon Grundy isn't the embodiment of pure rage, and b) Solomon Grundy doesn't turn into Bruce Banner. I think Bruce and Supes would be kinda bros, considering. And I would love to see what Hulk would do with stupid heat laser flying man.

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